[Blood/Pistols or Shotgun] Self-sustained, fully corrupted

Yep, we actually knew that for some time now, they explicitely said that they'll fix it. Grankly, i hope i've been clear enough for some time now that Anima-Touched were not the way to go anymore. With the Reap's self-healing improvement, the build should function normally. I'd even consider actually removing shotgun, and going for Voltaic Shunt instead - 1 less active and 1 less passive, allowing to keep both Reap and Desecrate.

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I've been testing replacing Shotgun with Elemental. So far I've found my highest DPS from Fire Bolt (no passive) and Crystallized Flame (w/passive). Energy for the offhand is never an issue, simply keep heat high and time your attacks to ensure Voltaic Shunt procs every 10 seconds. Using Effects UI makes it much more effective since you have actual visibility to the buff timing.

I found that Desecrate was just using precious Energy that was better spent casting Maleficium instead. With Fire Bolt, you have plenty of Elemental Energy so Crystallized Flame works well as it is cheap and high damage. In high mobility fights, it's likely not as useful, though.

Mjolnir is still good damage as well and aligns with Voltaic Shunt, but it's Energy hungry and doesn't recover from potential rotation mistakes as well as Fire Bolt. It's probably the most basic and simple to use l, though. It's also the better choice for high mobility fights where Crystallized Flame may end up wasted.

My Shotgun build still does higher DPS than Elemental, but not by much....and it does feel like it needs more management along with no AoE capability.

I've been testing replacing Shotgun with Elemental. So far I've found my highest DPS from Fire Bolt (no passive) and Crystallized Flame (w/passive). Energy for the offhand is never an issue, simply keep heat high and time your attacks to ensure Voltaic Shunt procs every 10 seconds. Using Effects UI makes it much more effective since you have actual visibility to the buff timing.

I found that Desecrate was just using precious Energy that was better spent casting Maleficium instead. With Fire Bolt, you have plenty of Elemental Energy so Crystallized Flame works well as it is cheap and high damage. In high mobility fights, it's likely not as useful, though.

Mjolnir is still good damage as well and aligns with Voltaic Shunt, but it's Energy hungry and doesn't recover from potential rotation mistakes as well as Fire Bolt. It's probably the most basic and simple to use l, though. It's also the better choice for high mobility fights where Crystallized Flame may end up wasted.

My Shotgun build still does higher DPS than Elemental, but not by much....and it does feel like it needs more management along with no AoE capability.

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The problem with that approach is that the whole concept of being "energy neutral" is an early-game concept. You'll certainly see that when you'll be at "endgame" (E5+), with high crit / Cold Silver Dice / Vali Metabolic gadget, you'll want to dump energy as fast as you can, because you actually meet many burst situations, and blood is already very weak at bursts. The mid-endgame gear using a well-xp'ed signet for your basic gives you lots of damage in those cases you become energy stuck (for prolonged moments on the fights).

There's a reason why hammer is such a powerful weapon, and it doesn't only come from the fact that its enraged Demolish damage is a bit over the average.

Oh, and you should check the passive for Cristallized Flame - it makes it unable to crit (likely a bug). Besides that, you're basically using 2 skills to consume from the same energy pool here (elemental energy), and in the case of Crystallized Flame, a passive as well, just to get a questionable damage boost every 20s. Moreover, playing with Fire Bolt will just make you spend too much time dumping elemental energy, and you'll actually want to spam blood as much as you can.

The way of going for Voltaic Shunt is the following : you glyph hit rating on your primary weapon (and get it to mythic 20 if you can), so you'll only be using hit rating in this slot. Than, you get Mjolnir with its passive with Voltaic Shunt, and you glyph that weapon with crit rating, that'll make your glyphing dychotomic like in the old TSW days. I calculated that on a regional boss (31% glance reduc required), you're getting 15% of a total elemental damage increase with this glyphing over the hit rating glyphing (if considered that Voltaic Shunt proc won't be glance reduc capped obviously). Oh, almost forgot about that: you'll always hit Mjolnirs at the 3rd heat threshold (past the initial 3x Mjolnir spam and heat rising), which is a nice bonus.

Finally, about Desecrate: don't forget that with its passive, it brings more to the table than just "a dot" - it gives your following Maleficiums more damage because of the Flay passive, as well as 16.5% damage increase (multiplicative with Corruption). Besides that, you'll honestly feel the need to have both Desecrate and Reap in quite a number of fights now that you cannot selfsustain yourself as well as you could before.

Oh, and you should check the passive for Cristallized Flame - it makes it unable to crit (likely a bug). Besides that, you're basically using 2 skills to consume from the same energy pool here (elemental energy), and in the case of Crystallized Flame, a passive as well, just to get a questionable damage boost every 20s. Moreover, playing with Fire Bolt will just make you spend too much time dumping elemental energy, and you'll actually want to spam blood as much as you can.

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I don't disagree about Mjolnir, I have done some more testing since my original post and Desecrate + Mjolnir is doing more DPS.

As for Crystallized Flame, with the passive it crits just fine for me....not a perfect parse, but just showing that it's logging a crit rate %. It also shows in the chat log as having Critical Hits:

Ah, they might have corrected that, or i might have just been fooled by the fact that the floating damage numbers don't ever get bigger when they crit (seems the ticks from the skill are considered as "procs") XD. Thanks for catching. Shame on me about not bothering checking in ACT or in the logs.

Hmm I cant seem to proc Voltaic Shunts ability, as I let the heat dissapate but nothing appears to happen even with effects ui mod.

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Works perfectly for me. I've had no issues with it. If you're using it blindly, it can be tough to track the 10 seconds as well as the 4 second cooldown on the buff to time the casting properly. You might just be missing the proper timing for the proc.

With the Effects UI, it's a little weird. I think you have to check off the "hidden effects" for it to show, but you will get 3 bars. One will show persistently as the equipment being set, the second shows as the 10 second timer for heat dissipation, and the 3rd shows once you get the proc to countdown the 4 second buff.

Works perfectly for me. I've had no issues with it. If you're using it blindly, it can be tough to track the 10 seconds as well as the 4 second cooldown on the buff to time the casting properly. You might just be missing the proper timing for the proc.

With the Effects UI, it's a little weird. I think you have to check off the "hidden effects" for it to show, but you will get 3 bars. One will show persistently as the equipment being set, the second shows as the 10 second timer for heat dissipation, and the 3rd shows once you get the proc to countdown the 4 second buff.

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I jumped the gun on my last response, didnt realize it was a hidden effect haha thanks!!

All methods of healing now now follow the Corruption mechanic, so it works but not as well as before. I still find Thirst to be helpful because even though it is nerfed at high Corruption, it still provides small heals. Also, if Thirst procs right after Reap, you'll have full health almost instantly.

The listed builds themselves still work, it's only the self-sustaining parts that aren't nearly as potent as they once were.

Previously, Thirst and an Anima Touched weapon would keep you healed, but they've been patched and now Reap is basically a necessity. Desecrate is a bonus ability if you have the extra slot, but in Shotgun's case, Shell Salvage is much more beneficial.

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